Javier RUPÉREZ - elected Assembly President in 1998 - today announced his resignation at the Assembly's spring session. He is due to take up a senior diplomatic post in the near future.

"Much to my regret, my resignation has to be effective immediately," said Rupérez. "It would be unreasonable to leave the Assembly without a leader at a time when the two issues of the European Defence Identity and the American's NMD project (National Missile Defence) risk inflicting serious damage on the Euro-Atlantic consensus.

"I am delighted that Vice-President Tom BLILEY will be taking over for the remainder of the presidency. He is not just an experienced and capable politician, but a former naval lieutenant. The Assembly will have an excellent pilot."

In his farewell speech, Rupérez, chairman of the Spanish parliament's defence committee, said he felt privileged to have played a part in the fundamental changes set in train by the end of the Cold War. As a young man he was also part of the anti-Franco opposition in Spain.

"One thing has always been clear to me," he told the plenary session. "Security and democracy cannot be separated." The value of the Assembly consisted in the kind of debate taking place in Budapest - the forging of consensus between free nations.

There were three principles which underpinned its success, he argued: "First, lasting security is only achievable if people's essential material needs are satisfied, and - just as important - if there is solid, institutionalised respect for individual and collective human rights. In practice, the two go together.

"Second, security is indivisible. That is a lesson we have been learning during the debacles following the collapse of Jugoslavia. Security and insecurity cannot sit side by side without compromising the whole.

"Third, security affects everyone, and matters to everyone. And it crosses national borders. Therefore by definition, it requires international cooperation. Sometimes, as Churchill understood, the use of force is unavoidable to achieve peace. Such situations are always controversial and difficult, and I fear they will become more common in the future. Achieving a durable consensus on how to act is one of the many reasons why this Assembly has a special, and increasing value.

"In the main, luckily, our task so far has principally been to keep the peace by identifying, and limiting as far as possible, policies and practices which endanger our common security. Identifying and dealing with difficulties before they become problems is of course the least understood and admired - and certainly least glamorous - kind of politics. It's also, I'd argue, the most important task of politicians."

(NATO PA Press Communiqué)